Review: Claas Disco 9200C Business

By: Jaiden Drought

Date: 20.11.2015

Check out this review of the Claas Disco 9200C Business mower.

This month I tested a quality all-round product from Claas that Campbell Contracting in Pihama, Taranaki recently took delivery of – the new Disco 9200C Business rear butterfly mowers, which complement its existing 3200C Disco Profil front mower.

Rusty and Sarah Campbell along with Rusty’s parents Scratch and Diane have had a long association with Claas mowers owning another set of doubles, a single trailing mower and now their new triples to replace a smaller 8500 set. The family has been mighty impressed with the mowers ability to drop grass.

Claas offers three specification levels for its rear triples: trend the base spec; contour the mid-spec; and top-of-the-line Business spec which can be straight-bar, conditioner or run with autoswathers as rear butterfly mowers.

Cutterbar

Apart from a few design tweaks and a slight colour scheme change, the new MaxCut bar is really the main talking point. The name MaxCut comes from the two pieces of Hardox steel, one called Max and the other Cut, which are located on the front of the bar and each side of the skid plate reducing the possibility of blade strike which was the only real issue with the older bar type.

Internally, Claas has shaved 2mm off the gears which are now 22mm in depth and are polished to give a tight five teeth grip (2.5 teeth from each drive gear) on the SafetyLink shaft with no slope at all. The core structure of the bed has a wave shape pressed into it on the front and is straight at the back with 3000 tonnes of force meaning no welding is required and no reason to fail.

The discs have also been redeveloped with the diameter increasing by six millimetres, and the disc runs inside the skid and the bar all the time for added protection.

Monitor

The test mowers were running the Claas operator monitor with full hydraulic ground pressure adjustment for all three mowers on the move. Combined with full auto steer GPS in the tractor, this machine is hard to beat in terms of efficiency.

There are two controller options – the entry Operator (test machine) and the up-spec colour Communicator II control box. Both can be run through ISOBUS into the tractor monitor. This works better on some monitors than others. The monitor on the test Puma 230 was run through the comfort controller as the GPS was on the tractor monitor. You can also run the machine in ‘P2’ which means it is running through the tractor spools for lifting as opposed to the buttons on the monitor.

A cool feature of the monitor is its ability to store up to 20 jobs and storage capabilities in the monitor for total hectares mown as well as total hours used with PTO running time. For the cycle to begin you must unfold the mowers which, thanks to the hydraulic unlock, is all done from the monitor.

Construction and operation

Although this machine looks big and complicated, a lot of the parts (such as the gear box, bed, frame, belt drive, shafts, rams etc) are interchangeable with the single mounted mowers which means parts are readily available. Two slots for the rear mower working widths are available depending on the front mower – a 3200 and 3600 gives 8.9 and 9.1 metre mowing width respectively.

The mower headstock has been reinforced with the pins repositioned for better weight distribution and the drive shaft holder and magnetic hydraulic couplers are all kept well out of harm’s way during storage. The storage box for spare blades also has stickers for left and right.

Contour following

All Disco Contour rear-mounted mowers are equipped with the suspension system called ActiveFloat. A simple eye check from the cab and adjusting the plough arms until the red arrow points to the guide indicates the correct position.

ActiveFloat is the hydro-pneumatic suspension between the cutter-bar and the ground. This can be adjusted from the cab with a one-way hydraulic outlet on all other models but our test Business model allows this to happen on the move via the monitor with the load sensing hydraulics constantly adjusting to maintain the set pressure. The Business unit also benefits from hydraulic brake back system while the trend and the contour units have mechanical brake back which is still very effective.

On all front mounted Profil mowers since 2010, there is the hydraulic suspension option – simply take the springs off and mount the hydraulic rams and pressure gauge. With the hydraulic option the front mower runs the same ActiveFloat system as the rear mowers and when combined with the rear business unit, this will be done infinitely via the front to rear connecting hose.

The verdict

Power requirements are always a bit of a lottery with these machines because it is entirely dependent on the type of terrain. The recommendation is 200 horsepower. The test Puma CVT 230 (boosted to 270) handled the mowers very comfortably and, with the full nine-metre cut, it produced healthy efficiency figures and didn’t flinch all day. This machine is ‘the business’.

Pros

Attention to detail.

Build quality.

MaxCut bar is very well designed.

On the move hydraulic ground pressure adjustment.

Load sensing keeps the bar pressure constant.

Fully ISOBUS compatible so can be run through the tractor monitor.

Hydraulic unlock and protection break back.

Gearbox speed sensors with alarms should speed be either too high or low.

Very good cut quality in annual grass with spray truck marks which can usually end up with a somewhat hairy look.

Cons

While forward visibility of the front mower is excellent, contour following isn’t as good as some other brands.

Read the full article in the latest issue (#224) of Farm Trader magazine. Subscribe here.